Link mentioned in the video: https://positivepsychology.com/progressive-muscle-relaxation-pmr/

0:01 - Intro

Hello again, I'm Shane from MATRIX. And believe it or not, it's already Tip-5 today! The days really are starting to blend together a little bit, aren't they? In today's tip, I'm going to help you learn how to relax your muscles.

0:17 – What Chronic Stress Does

In the state that we're in right now, we're all under levels of chronic stress. Our brain has a protective mechanism for that, it's to start to take us into the fetal position and to tighten up our muscles. It's a natural survival instinct to protect us in the short term. But when it's chronic, like this, and the muscles are constantly being tightened a little bit more than they should be, it doesn't feel good and it's no longer helpful. The other thing that starts to happen is we actually forget what relaxation feels like. So, we might try to do some stretches and different things like that to help loosen and lengthen the muscles again. However, if we have that underlying stress retightening us, it's not always going to work. Sometimes what we have to do is go the opposite way. We have to work on tightening the muscles so that we re-learn what tight actually is. Then we can then relax on the other side. Hopefully, that makes some sense. And as always, you can post questions or join me on the Q&A later to learn more about it.

1:23 – Why PMR is Helpful

Moving forward, this is called PMR -- Progressive Muscle Relaxation, I'll provide a link to give you an outline of how to do it. There are actually some apps you can download that have this built into an audio thing that you can listen to. So, if you want to try some of this with me today -- just for time sake -- I'm not going to do the whole body. I'm going to teach you the basics. But when you're doing it, it might be best to either sit down or lay down because when you're standing up, more of your muscles are tight just to keep you standing. If you want to join, go ahead and take a seat. Basically, all this is, is moving through the body, progressively, one part of the body to the next, squeezing the muscles in that area, and then taking some time to relax. The other important thing to recognize is -- going all the way back to our first video tip -- belly breathing is going to be really important in this too. Because while you're working and relaxing, you want to have that nice, gentle breath.

2:22 – Belly Breathing Review

As a quick recap on that, belly breathing is slow inhales, slow exhales. Doing your best to get the belly to move out as you breathe in. And it pulls back in as you exhale. The upper chest stays still.

2:41 – PMR Basics

Walking through the [PMR] process, we're going to start first with the hands. They're easy to work with. What I want you to do is as you breathe in, try to squeeze your hands at maybe a level 5 out of 10. You don't want to go really, really tight, but you want to start squeezing. We'll do it together. Breathing in. And then as you exhale, relax. Let the hands open up and really try to feel the relaxation. Try it again one more time. Breathing in. And then letting go. From there, you can start to move into other parts of the body. We'll do one more together, we'll do the upper arms. So, we'd be squeezing through our upper arms tightly. And letting go. One more time. Hopefully, when you do that, you can begin to feel the contrast between the squeeze and the relaxation. Retraining your brain with what both of those things feel like. So, when you go to relax, you actually know what it is. And it might help you reduce some of that chronic tension that you've been feeling through different parts of your body.

4:06 – The PMR Sequence

To go into a little bit more detail, there's no really right or wrong way to do [PMR]. But the way that I like to do it -- the progression that I use moving through my body -- is working from the bottom up. So, if I'm sitting or lying down, I'm going to do two rounds -- like we just did -- for my feet and lower legs. So, the shins, the calves, the feet. Squeezing through those and letting go. After I do two rounds there, I'll move up into the thighs and the glutes. Squeezing. And then relaxing. I will then start to go back out into the hands. We'll do the hands and the forearms, like we just did. After two rounds, I'll move into the arms and the shoulders. And now moving in towards the center of the body. I might go back and do my glutes. Squeezing tight through there. Working on the chest and the upper back. Bringing some tension through there. And then lastly, trying to squeeze in through the midsection. And again, letting go. Feeling the relaxation. Lastly, after all of that is when I move to the face. Squeezing, and then releasing. And really try to feel the skin get heavy over top of my bones.

5:18 – Summary & Preview

That's Progressive Muscle Relaxation [PMR]. Give it a shot. It might not be the greatest thing the very first time you do it. But if you try it two or three times and you start to get the hang of it -- I promise you -- your whole body will start to feel better! To wrap things up -- I also want to let you know -- do practice this one, because I have a few other tips planned for the coming days, we're going to use the similar thing, but instead of using it for relaxation, we're going to turn it into a workout. So, be sure to check back in for that.

5:47 - Farewell

Have a great day. And I hope to see you on the Q&A later today.